


Invincible

by Unda



Series: It's the end of the world as we know it [26]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Surgery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-19 02:21:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13694859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unda/pseuds/Unda
Summary: Sollux POV fic, set after chapter 35 of MC Escher.Or in which the author of this series was really hecking dumb and forgot to take their medication for two days or, indeed, sleep and nearly had an episode and vent wrote this in a panic. But it's good so you all get to read it now too (also I'm fine luckily, don't worry)





	Invincible

**Author's Note:**

> tl;dr: not all bipolar looks the same but I'm writing how mine tends to show up so *shrug*

And now my money says they won't know about the

Thousand Fahrenheit hot metal lights behind your eyes

Invincible

You're invincible

That crushing crashing atom-smashing white hot thing,

It's invincible

  
  


When you broke up with Aradia it really sucked, not only because someone you loved betrayed your trust but because in all honesty you really need a moirail. Even excluding your wildly fucked up brain and the merry-go-round of hell you’re perpetually stuck on because of it you’re someone who pretty much does better with people watching out for you. Not socialising is easier than socialising, not bothering to eat is easier than remembering to do so, not leaving your room is easier than doing other shit. But more than that you find that fixing someone else’s problems is far preferable than working on your own. You help someone else, they help you in the end you're both better.

Losing Aradia hurt but you got Dave in the end.

“I’m taking this off or you’re gonna get hair all over my shirt.” he says, already pulling his god tier shirt off.

You lean against the sink in your bathroom and track your eyes over the plethora of scars on him. His past makes him pitybait, sure but that’s cheap Alternian pale porn bullshit and you’re not into romanticising his awful past. Nah, what you like when you see Dave shirtless is the way there aren’t new scars. You like how he’s not wiry anymore and how though he still has obvious muscles that most kids your age don’t it’s now clear that he’s gone a while with people feeding him good food. He’s doing well.

“M’kay, you ready?” he asks, tossing his shirt at your bed and picking the clippers up again.

“Go for it.” you tell him, leaning over the sink and tipping your head down.

“You’re not gonna look too stupid, I used to cut the back of Dirk’s hair for him. I guess I’ll have to again now all the more qualified people besides me and Dirk are dead.” Dave says and you hear the buzz of the clippers start up.

“So I’m gonna look at least a little stupid?” you ask.

“You are gonna have several holes in your head.” Dave points out and runs the clippers through your hair at the bottom of your hairline. Black hair flutters down into the sink.

He shaves up higher after that and then carefully feels out where the top of your spine is and changes to something with a closer cut and then closer still.

“Are you ok with me becoming a helmsman?” you ask the inside of the sink.

“The list of shit in my life that I’m not ok with is fuckin’ monumental, man.” he snorts.

“But,” he continues and blows hair off of the machine, “you’re taking shitloads of precautions and I get why you’re doing it so it’s whatever. Besides I know you have a secret hard on for plugging the internet right into your brain.”

“Instant meme access.” you agree solemnly.

“Well, shit now I’m jealous.” he says, deadpan.

“Stay still, this is the bit that’ll look dumb but nothing I can do about that.” Dave tells you and his fingers hold your head steady. You feel an actual blade scrape over your skin and stay perfectly still.

“Right, all done.” he says and releases you.

Straightening up you run a hand over the back of your head. Your hair fades into progressively shorter as it meets your neck where it’s almost suede like in feel. Up the knobbled line of your spine you can feel the rectangular shaved clean patch where in less than an hour a machine will be surgically inserting a port into your brainstem. Dave’s design is smart, though. In maybe a week your hair will have started growing again so it’s indistinguishable from the other deliberately shorter hair. 

“Thanks. You’re right, it’s only a little stupid.” you tell him.

Dave flashes you a quick smile and dusts your stray hair off of him as best as he can and goes to put his shirt on again. When he’s done he gives you another smile but this one is tight and pretty forced, shaving your head in the right place was the last thing you had to do before your surgery. You slide your hand into Dave’s and take him out into the corridor, enjoying how easily he still flusters. The walk to the medical bay is short and when you get there it’s clear you’re the last to arrive.

Your dad is already standing by the right machine looking a little queasy and the rest of your parents are there with him. Jane is waiting nervously and Mituna is at her side, she’s there to heal as best as she can if something goes wrong and Mituna obviously wants to see what’ll be done to him if yours goes well. Everyone else has been banned from watching but over the last twenty four hours you’ve got plenty of messages wishing you luck.

“The machine has all the information from your scans, it’s all ready. You don’t have to do this, you know.” Psii says seriously.

“I want to.” you tell him.

Psii sighs and rubs the back of his neck, close to the port into his own body. He must have been shoved in a machine like this once too, but this is different. Your family are here with you, your moirail looked after you and isn’t leaving, this is by choice.

“Fine, take your clothes off and then we’ll put you under.” he says. You’re glad that he told you in advance that you still get to keep your boxers on. Psii customised the setup so that you’re not getting _every_ port put in, just the ones around your spine and brain. On the one hand it means that you can’t be in the helm longer than you can go without food, water and going to the bathroom but you also don’t get holes punched in your organs. Besides the ship doesn’t fall out of the sky if you unplug, it has no helmsman right now after all. It’ll be fine if you have to step out to take a leak when you’re helming.

Jane tastefully looks away as you kick off your shoes, peel off your jeans and shirt. Signless and Disciple hug you as Psii picks some medical equipment up and honestly the parental hugs would have been less weird if you weren’t just standing here in your boxers. Mituna nods at you in a rare moment of seriousness and Dave wraps an arm around you.

When Psii comes towards you it’s a needle that you’re expecting but he doesn’t have one, instead it’s a mask and a tube thing. You’re used to needles, your lithium requires routine blood tests after all so it’s no big deal. He inclines his head towards the helmsman making machine and you hop your butt up onto it, he pushes you gently until you’re laid out all the way back on the bed part. He clenches the mask in his hand a little, he looks like he might throw up or something.

“I love you.” he says quickly.

“It’ll be ok, dad.” you tell him. He nods and holds the mask over your face.

“Count back from ten.” he says and you’ve seen this done on TV before. You’re sure you can get further than the seven or so they all seem to get to.

“Ten, nine, eight… sev…”

  


It’s not like closing your eyes and opening them again, some part of you is aware that time has passed. You’re not really smart enough to think about it right now. You’re just weightless and floaty. Also your mouth is way too fucking dry Jesus did you lick a… a dry thing?

“Aaauuuuaaa…” you groan, your tongue sticking to the roof of your mouth. Consonant please.

You open your eyes. Eye. Wow, now try both at once please.

Everything is slightly red and blue in the way that it is when your dad or brother are using their psionics on you.

“He’s awake! Hey baby how do you feel?” your mom purrs at you. You’re floating, you realise and she’s crouched down to see you.

How do you feel? A little sore, maybe? You’re more thirsty than anything else.

“Drink?” you whine.

“The tube in his throat probably dried his mouth out, I’ll get water.” your dad says. Your other dad, Psii, floats you over to a table and gently sets you down. He probably didn’t want your spine twisted or something. You lean against the side of the machine and blink hazily at him. He’s blurry as all fuck and it doesn’t get better when you squint at him.

“Everythin’ fuzzy.” you groan.

“Did we damage his eyes?” Signless gasps in horror.

“He’s not wearing his glasses.” Dave’s voice says and a red blur moves closer to you and solidifies into Dave. He carefully slides something onto your face and oh yeah, you wear glasses. Hey, you can see now.

“Better?” he asks and you chirp at him. Maybe you’re kind of anaesthetic stupid right now but god you pity him so much, you chirp louder to really emphasise how much you feel that but his stupid human ears still don’t hear you. Mituna is sniggering to himself so apparently everyone else can.

“Alright, tell me your name.” your dad asks seriously.

“Thollux Catpr- Captor. Fuck you for naming me that with a tongue like thith.” you curse, your mouth falling into your normally mostly controlled lisp again just because you’re dumb on anaesthesia. Throwing that word also into the list of words you maybe shouldn’t say for a while.

You get your drink and answer more basic questions and as you do you begin to sober up a little more. They scan your head and reveal (yay) no brain damage. Jane even healed you a bit which explains why you don’t feel like you just got a crap tonne of holes punched in you. Regardless you’re still bandaged over those spots and on strict orders not to touch your new ports.

You’re cleared to go watch TV and not much else, but watching your siblings try to work out how to hug you without touching your back or neck is hilarious. Karkat settles for aggressively grabbing your forearms and smacking his head into your collarbone while shouting about how worried he was. Roxy kisses you on the cheek which is awesome if slightly confusing.

When dinner rolls around you’re exhausted and you feel too sick to eat anything so Dolorosa makes you a suspiciously healthy-looking smoothie that you manage half of. Throughout all of this Dave sticks to your side. Even when you slink back to your room he stays with you. When he dumps a mattress on the floor and gives you a look that dares you to argue you realise he’s not going anywhere.

When he’s in your bathroom you sit on the edge of your bed and reach for your medication only to find it not there. You had to hide it a few days ago, you’re so used to taking it each night that you took it when you weren’t meant to, you were supposed to have three days free of it before surgery because it doesn’t play nice with the anaesthetic. Your surgery had to be delayed a day to compensate for it and even now you’re not allowed it, not until your system has settled. You fish the bottle out of your drawer and look at it, you can’t remember the last time you weren’t meant to take them. There have been times when you’ve not been well and tongued your medication to stay manic, always a bad decision. But you were still supposed to have it. Now you’re medically advised not to take the stuff, something you never thought would happen. It’s temporary of course but still weird. You drop the bottle back in the drawer and shut it.

“You tired?” Dave asks, coming out of the bathroom in his pyjamas.

“Yeah.” you nod and flop face down on your bed, having the sense to not lay on your sore back.

You fall asleep almost instantly.

When you wake up it’s only four hours later and you can’t get back to sleep. You toss and turn as much as you can in bed without going onto your back and eventually settle on sitting up with your phone and porting DOOM across to it and beating it with touch controls alone.

“Been up long?” Dave asks with a yawn as he looks up at you with sleepy red eyes a few hours later.

“No.” you lie because you don’t want him to feel bad.

You sit at the breakfast table watching Karkat distributing tasks to people and putting them up on his new giant board on the wall that runs electronically from his tablet. It’s an elegant little coding bit that your dad whipped up but right now you’re bummed that your whole section for days is blocked out as recovery.

“What am I supposed to do for days?” you ask irritably.

“Just relax and recover. Play video games, watch movies, sleep. Code things if you want to, it’s just all the shit you used to do instead of chores before.” Karkat snarks at you.

You climb onto the circular bench next to Dave but he’s too in depth in an argument with his siblings to really pay attention to you more than a glance.

“The point is that if Santa ever did exist it would render all children’s actions morally neutral at best if not outright bad for as long as they thought about him, certainly for December at least.” Rose insists.

“You’re assuming moral purity here instead of consequentialism with absolutely no basis for that.” Hal argues.

“I have no idea what’s happening here.” Roxy tells you over Hal’s head.

“Oh good, I’m getting coffee.” you grumble, getting up.

“Ok but Santa clearly is a bad person, he has PR making a song that includes the lines ‘you better watch out, you better not cry’ you’re lucky he doesn’t eat children!” Dave retorts as you walk off.

Kitchen, coffee. You pour yourself a large cup and drink it immediately, who needs tastebuds anyway? Mr Egbert looks over at you dubiously.

“I’m sure you’re all too young to be drinking coffee but for my own sanity I’m going to assume that it has different effects on trolls.” he says, pulling a tray out of the oven.

“Yeah, if I only end up to be seven foot tall I’m sure my family will disown me.” you mutter into your fresh cup of coffee.

“Hm, quite. Croissant?” he says, offering you the fresh tray. You float one off of there because you’d like to not burn your fingertips and resolve to go find your dad. He’s in the helm when you find him, not plugged in but instead doing something with one of the biowires.

“Hey.” you call out to him.

“Oh, morning. How did you sleep?” he asks with a cheerful smile.

You should tell him that you barely slept, hence the second cup of coffee in your first hour out of your room but if you do he’ll get worried. So you lie.

“Fine. Can I take the bandages off?” you ask instead, pointing to the taped on gauze at your temples.

“Hm, let me see.” Psii says and lets the wire go. He walks to you and gently peels off one of the bandages at your temple. He hums in a pleased way, looking sidelong at it you can see that the bandage doesn’t even have any blood or, uh, brain goo on it.

“Jane does good work.” your dad says happily and peels the next one off of your other temple. Thankfully the one on the back of your head comes off easily thanks to Dave’s close shave and though you need to take your shirt off so your dad can peel the ones down your spine off it’s all good.

“Great! So I can just get started?” you ask hopefully, looking over at the helmscolumn. Dave was right about your motivations, you do want to help your dad and prevent a disaster but… well, plugging a computer into your brain is going to be so cool. Besides, you won’t feel so restless and useless if you’re learning how to work with the ship.

“What? No. God, no. You’re healed on the outside but I don’t know how healed you are on the inside, I didn’t even get plugged in the day after. You’ve only got the one brain and spine, you really don’t want to screw them up. I’ve seen it on other helmsmen before, brain damage is a bad look. Besides, I don’t want to plug you in until you’re medicated again.” Psii says with a shake of his head.

“And how long with THAT be?” you groan.

“Within the next week. We’ll test your blood every day, make sure the surgery medications are all out of your system and your liver functions are ok. Leave that to us.” he assures you.

“Ugh. What am I meant to do in the meantime?” you whine. You can hear it, how annoying you sound.

“Try relaxing.” your dad snorts and picks his wire up again.

“Everyone has shit to do.” you point out.

“It’s almost like you know several people who can time travel and literally be in two places at once just to entertain you.” Psii remarks without looking up.

You grumble under your breath, or mostly under your breath and leave. Maybe you should just go back to your room and nap.

“Oh, one last thing.” Psii says, sticking his head out of the door.

“Yeah?” you ask.

“Don’t stick anything in those ports, they go right to your brain and spine. Nothing goes in there except biowires. And this might not be relevant since Roxy is your soulmate and humans are anatomically boring as fuck but overly excited bulges and spine ports do not mix.” Psii warns.

“Augh, Dad! GROSS!” you shout and Psii’s shit-eating grin just gets wider.

“I’m just saying, being fucked until you can’t walk sounds great on paper but not so great when you have actual spine damage- hey come back here!” Psii shouts after you as you’re already quick walking away. It doesn’t help his pretense of giving you serious advice when he’s laughing too hard to keep a straight face but still, gross.

When you get to your room Dave is sprawled out on your bed looking at his phone.

“Sup?” Dave says, not even looking up.

“When did you get here?” you ask.

“From your point of view about five minutes ago, from my point of view it’s both five minutes ago and also eight hours from now. You should message me and ask me to loop back when my day’s over bee tea dubs. I assume you’ve already have the idea or whatever?” Dave says, still not looking up from his phone.

“Sort of. What smells like burning?” you ask, sniffing the air. Something in here smells crispy.

“Oh, that’s me. Jade and I went to see my denizen to get a weapon and he did not appreciate me showing up and tried to lava me to death. I nearly died, but it’s cool we’ll just grind some more and go back in ehhh a week maybe?” Dave shrugs, finally tossing his phone down and sitting up.

“Right.” you nod. Well, he’s here now so you resign yourself to messaging current Dave and asking him to do just what future Dave said and now you have Dave for the day. Whether you wanted him or not.

Geez, what’s with you? He’s your moirail and he wants to spend time with you because he cares and you asked him to. You’re bored and restless and now you have company all day. You’re probably just tired. That’s it. You sign off on your message to current Dave and walk over to future Dave- fuck it he’s just Dave. You walk over to him and push him back and crawl onto the bed.

“I’m tired.” you explain and flop down, using his arm and a pillow.

“You did have a machine drill into your brain yesterday, makes sense.” Dave agrees.

You curl up against him and slide your fingers into his soft human hair. A few parts of it are crispy and singed and you have a chill few minutes combing those parts out with your fingers. Dave’s breath slows down really fast and you figure that it’s the end of the day for him, he’s probably tired. That’s fine, you have nowhere to be.

You should just nap.

Just fall asleep.

Ok, sleeping face down is hell. Your side will do instead. Ugh, no, the other side. This is also bad. You should be healed enough for your back to be fine, right? AAAA OK NO. You jerk up to sitting and Dave lifts his head up to look at you.

“How about I kick your ass at video games?” you suggest instead.

“Oh, you can try.” Dave retorts.

You beat him soundly at Super Smash Bros., Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and by the time Mario Kart rolls around you are totally bored.

“Maybe you could just code something while I lick my wounded ego.” Dave groans, falling back against your bedframe.

“Or you could not suck so much.” you retort, a little meaner than you meant to.

“You’re really bad at doing nothing.” Dave tells you flatly.

“It’s not my fault everything is boring and stupid!” you tell him sharply. Dave doesn’t- he doesn’t make the sounds that trolls do when they’re upset and he’s pretty deadpan anyway but you can see when he’s hurt. He took that a little personally.

“Dirk gets like this. When Bro put him in the hospital he was a pain in the ass for ages, he hated not being immediately fine. If you want me to just bounce and leave you on your own you just gotta say, man.” Dave tells you.

You grit your teeth, trying to think twice about your words.

“I’m just frustrated, bored and tired.” you say carefully.

“Yeah, dude, I noticed.” Dave scoffs.

“Fuck you.” you snap at him, he rolls his eyes.

“Maybe you should just go.” you say, again a little meaner than you meant.

“Cool, just call me if you want me.” Dave shrugs and gets up. He gives you a chill half wave and walks out just like that. Like he didn’t even care about being here or not! That- ugh, no you wanted him to go so you didn’t piss him off for real. It’s a wonder he puts up with you anyway, no need to make it worse.

You hang your head and really wish that you could walk out and leave you behind like Dave just did because the shitty thing about being you is that wherever you go there you are. No getting away from yourself.

With a sigh you carefully sit in your desk chair and wake your computer up, its beefy components come to life with a whirr. Dave suggested coding something and maybe that is the kind of thing that would take your mind off of things. You’ve got no open projects that interest you though, all your old ones are dull which is why you dropped them in the first place and you have a few interesting viruses but you’d rather not work on those when you’re going to be plugged into the network that’ll run them soon.

You close ~ATH windows one by one and stare at your desktop, you have a few files on there because you had no obvious place to file them. One is a shortlink to your shared file with everyone about their lands, prototyping and such from the beginning of the game. The other is a spreadsheet that you started when you and Dave first started playing with the alchemiter and cataloguing the results. You had hoped that you might be able to find a way to work out how the game catalogues items.

Ugh, Dave. You’re already feeling bad for how you treated him, he was just trying to be nice. You rest your chin in your hand and stare blankly at the spreadsheet, you remember how messed up he was when you made this. How you made him feel better and how good that made you feel. Even then you’d liked him. Admittedly you liked him before the world ended too, when he showed up on your doorstep obviously in trouble with his brother and you let him in and played games with him you’d… pitied him. It was shitty of you given that you were still with Aradia at the time but she was lying to you and manipulating you so your guilt is minimal there. But still, Dave has that carefully made outer shell and so much soft and fragile insides. He’s irresistibly pitiable, not to mention just generally fun to be around even when you’re not helping him be less of a disaster. God, he is amazing and you hurt his feelings. But… well, he suggested this maybe you can finish your work to make it up to him.

Yeah, that sounds good. You look over your old work and decide that it needs to be scrapped and instead you consolidate it into a list of items and codes along with the list of everything that everyone has made or tried to make. That gives you a lot of data. Hm, now this is the kind of job a neural network could do. All you need to do is feed it that information and then see what new items it predicts, give the alchemiter prediction system that and see if it’s right or wrong, add that new information to the data and it’ll learn.

This could be something.

You set to work, fingers flying over the keys. With a good project to grind the axe of your mind against everything else quiets down.

A knock sounds on your door and when it whooshes open you look up. Dave is sticking his head in.

“You missed dinner, I covered for you with your parents. Figured you’d want time alone.” Dave explains. You have a long moment of ‘huh?’ until you look at the clock in the corner of your screen and see that it’s well past dinner time. All you’ve had today is several cups of coffee and one pastry, you’re not even hungry or tired.

“Right. Sorry, I lost track of time.” you apologise.

“Heh, no problem I’m right here.” Dave grins, walking into your room and leaning against the wall.

“Oh, and I brought you food.” he adds, popping out some ‘DELICIOUS NOMS’ from his sylladex. You raise an eyebrow at him.

“Judge my naming conventions and you get nothing.” he warns and hands the full plate to you. You shove a slice of garlic bread in your mouth and say nothing.

“What’re you doing anyway?” he asks, leaning over your shoulder to look.

“Nothing! It’s a surprise!” you say hastily and cover the screen with your hand, thankfully the one not covered in garlic bread grease.

“Oh, yeah dude, totally stop me from seeing. I can absolutely understand… that.” Dave laughs and you eye the perfectly clear ~ATH coding and then look back at him. Right. You lower your hand.

“I could teach you someday you know.” you offer.

“Hm, maybe save slam dunking my self esteem for when we’re done saving the universe, huh?” Dave teases you.

“You’re smarter than you think you are.” you insist but Dave just flashes you a fake smile with his emotional walls rising right back up. Ugh, insecure knights. You will make him see himself one day. You will drag your moirail kicking and screaming into being better and seeing himself for what he is if it kills you.

“Remember not to take your meds tonight and go to sleep too, you did have major surgery you dumbass.” Dave reminds you, hooking one finger around one of your larger horns and playfully pulling on it.

Dave leaves a little after that and you turn back to your computer, your meal is sat on the side. You pull a giant can of energy drink out of your sylladex and alternate between chugging that and chewing mindlessly on bread as you look over your code.

If you could get the prediction mechanism on the alchemiter hooked up to this you could potentially data mine it for possibilities and feed that straight back into your neural network to teach it more. You wipe your garlicky fingers on your jeans and start typing again, your food forgotten at your side.

Two cans of drink later and a bathroom break forces you away from your screen, it’s only then that you realise it’s four am. Well, shit.

You eye your temples in the bathroom mirror, the closed silver ports gleam against your skin and new yellow tinted… scar tissue? You guess it’s scars. New scar tissue edges it. Curiously and carefully your press a finger to it and find the port opens up easy as anything. You quickly whip your finger back before you end up with it right in there. Fingering your frontal lobe until you die is not something on your list of things to do. Still, it’s weird to see them there, all alien on your body.

Pulling your shirt off you run your fingers up your spine and over each metal port. Maybe you should be creeped out or afraid but you don’t feel that. You feel unstoppable. You did this to yourself for the greater good, you stuck two middle fingers up to everything helmsman were supposed to be, everything that would have happened to you on Alternia and instead you just fucking OWNED IT. You know how great Psii is as a helmsman, you know how much insane power that Mituna put into the shuttle when you were kidnapped, you’re gonna be even better.

You should also stop grinning like a brain damaged idiot and go to bed, it’s four am.

You put your computer to sleep and drop into bed after a quick change into your pyjamas. Yet again finding a position to be comfortable in proves nigh impossible, no matter what you’re doing it’s not right. Eventually, you manage to wedge yourself between two pillows and doze.

You’re just on the edge of sleep after far too long trying to fall asleep when it occurs to you in a flash. The alchemiter system is based on CONCEPTS! All you need to do is find out what the base concepts are! Like what is the base concept of- of something like your energy drinks? Water? Coffee? Is coffee a baser concept than caffeine? Could you alchemise just pure caffeine?

You push yourself out of bed and rush to your computer and start running tests. This project is going to be better than you thought!

A few hours later your dad sticks his head around your door and you manage to keep your cool enough so that he doesn’t find out you were bad and spent all night coding. He’s a total hypocrite because you know he does the same but he’d be worried you’re not resting enough, which is dumb because you’re just sitting on your ass.

“Come on, blood test.” your dad says, holding out the needle. The process is familiar and boring for both of you and so when he’s done you stick your own band-aid on your arm.

“I’ll take this to the lab. I did bring you breakfast too but I see you still have dinner.” he says, looking at the still full and now cold plate of food. Shit, you’d forgotten to eat almost all of it.

“Dave brought a lot.” you say, not untrue.

“He’s worried about you. I know I missed the beginning of how all this started but it’s pretty obvious he really cares about you, you should have seen his face during surgery. But… he’s a good kid, I’m glad two of my sons ended up with him.” Psii smiles and you beam back at him. Just thinking about Dave makes you glow inside. He’s awesome and he makes Karkat so happy too. You do love your brother, no matter how annoying he can be and Dave makes Karkat so much less conscious of his own imperfections and makes him genuinely content. And he listens to you and gets you without being a condescending prick or treating you like you’re made of glass like so many people do.

“He’s great.” you sigh happily.

“Gross. Ok, I’ll run this through the lab, here’s your breakfast and I’ll even be a great dad and take your old plate too.” Psii laughs and floats your plate up to him as a new one with breakfast food on it floats down to you. He waves goodbye to you and leaves.

Kicking your feet up on the table you float a pastry over to your mouth and decide to message Dave, you were kind of a douche to him yesterday.

[twinArmageddons began trolling turntechGodhead]

TA: hey there!

TG: whoa hey

TA: ii wa2 thiinkiing ii wa2 kiind of an a22 two you ye2terday and ii wanted two 2ay 2orry.

TG: oh

TG: no hey you dont have to do that

TA: but ii 2hould, you're my moiiraiil and ii wa2 a tool.

TG: thats real nice you seem in a good mood today

TA: yeah! ii feel great, ii've been workiing on a project liike you 2ugge2ted. iit wa2 a great iidea.

TG: fuck yeah strider good idea tally notching up again nice

TA: hey, you have lot2 of great iidea2 don't 2ell your2elf 2hort. ii thiink you're great, you're the be2t moiiraiil there ii2. <>

TG: auhgh people are staring at me now

TA: why?

TG: cause im bright fuckin red man

TA: aw <>

TG: jesus

TG: <>

TA: anyway, ii al2o wanted two 2ay that ii'm gonna keep codiing thii2 thiing and re2tiing 2o you don't need two tiime loop or anythiing today two check on me. we can hang out thii2 eveniing or 2omethiing!

TG: wow you are chipper

TG: but ok sure

TG: im trying to think of good moirail advice now uh have naps and drink water or something

TA: hah or somethiing!

TG: shut up you i was on the spot

TA: cool have fun <>

TG: you too man <>

[twinArmageddons ceased pestering turntechGodhead]

You spring out of your seat with a grin. Moirail appreciated: check! You should probably shower or something. Filled with motivation you shower, brush your teeth, style your hair which looks honestly cool as fuck after what Dave did to it and then you even put on nice clothes. You slide back into your chair and wake your computer up as you bite into another delicious Egbert pastry, how did you never notice how great these were before? They taste amazing! You chase it with an energy drink (breakfast of champions) as you glance over your code. You’re bouncing in your seat with excitement as ideas flow through you, you crack your knuckles and get to work. You’re gonna make this game your bitch.

It’s not flawless progress but you battle on, the game has rules to it and you’re an expert at finding things like that. Even if it’s creating some things on the fly the game has preset item codes for everything important, you could find the codes for all of the legendary weapons and power boost your players!

In a stroke of genius you manage to get the neural network to learn the concept of nationality thanks to Hal’s saved wikipedia pages on countries, flags and so on. You then plug in the code for Dave’s legendary sword and subtract the common code between the fifty or so swords that have been made which gave you the concept of swords along with removing the concept of nationality which subtracted the Welshness. What that leaves you with is the concept of 'legendary'. Obviously, that doesn’t make an item because legendary itself is not a tangible thing and if it was it would just make you because you are clearly legendary!

You combine the concept of legendary with a bunch of weapons and get a projected set that are all about Zilly-something. That’s cool and all but it doesn’t answer the obvious question of, what was it, oh yeah the fundamental nature of things!

When Dave arrives that evening and you’re explaining it to him he just stares at you in confusion.

“I’m not sure if I’m not getting this because I’m not smart enough or whatever or if you’re just talking way too fast. Can you slow down?” Dave says, holding a hand up.

“You’re not stupid!” you snap at him, you hate HATE when he talks like that.

“Okay, man, chill your tits.” he says, holding his hands up.

“Ok like- right so dogs right? There’s so many different kinds and there’s a- I mean when you see a pug and a huskie you go dog right so there’s a fundamental dogness to- you know, in the- dogs! So concepts are the core component of all things, the dogness in all dogs. You can distill that and the details don’t matter. I’ve already done Welshness.” you say, gesturing to the computer.

“What?” Dave says. Goddamnit.

“Look, I took Welshness out of your sword and sword out and got legendary and now legendary weapons.” you say hurriedly and bring up the Zilly series.

“Those look dumb as fuck,” Dave says slowly, “but the cost looks right for hardcore gear. Damn, you’re onto something.”

“HAH! I knew you’d get it!” you cheer and kiss him on the cheek in delight. He goes wonderfully red and you can’t help but laugh.

“Ok so I gotta keep working on this, it’s a huge breakthrough and could change the game for all of us.” you say hurriedly and open up the latest part you’ve been working on. There’s so many though, so many different rabbit holes you’ve been chasing down.

“Tonight? But I thought you wanted to hang.” Dave says behind you, you’re already typing.

“Ah, well I have to do this. But you can stay if you want, draw or something.” you say absently. You’re trying to remove the concept of fire from lava right now and the stupid neural network keeps getting stuck on trying to make diamonds.

“Wow, man. Don’t put yourself out or anything.” Dave mutters.

“It’s cool.” you mumble as you scowl at the disobedient code.

“Call me if you want me, ok?”

You nod and pop open another drink, you’re going to beat this code.

Dave sticks his head back through the door.

“Are you wearing the same clothes as yesterday?” he asks.

“I like them.” you say absently as you backspace on your keyboard. You’re getting sloppy, it’s stupid.

“Did you sleep?” Dave asks, spinning you around to look at him.

“Hey! I’m working!” you protest but Dave is in your face.

“Did you sleep?” he asks again.

Sudden, clawing, irrational fear rises up in you. He’ll be mad if you say no, he’ll tell your parents because he loves you, but he doesn’t know better and you’re fine, you really are. You’re not even tired.

“Yeah, totally.” you answer quickly.

Dave opens his mouth and hesitates.

“Your bed looks the same as yesterday.” he says after a moment.

“Are you calling me a liar?” you demand, pushing him back.

“I- no, I… are you ok? You seem sick.” Dave stammers out, backing up a little.

“What? No. I’m fine. Jane fixed me up, it barely even hurts if I bump the ones on my back.” you assure him.

“No I don’t mean…” Dave hesitates a little more.

“Uh, hold on a moment.” he says and pulls his phone out and starts typing rapidly and then pauses, reading something.

“What’re you doing?” you challenge him, pushing out of your seat to square up to him.

“Nothing. That thing you’re working on, is the same thing as what you started after I looped?” Dave asks, pointing to your computer. You turn and look at the many code windows open across your two monitors.

“Yeah.” you say with a nod.

“Right, right, and uh how is that going?” Dave questions you, glancing down at his phone for a moment.

“It’s going great, I already explained it to you! But whatever man, I’m going to crack the whole thing wide open and save the game for everyone.” you tell him.

“I… ok. And do you feel… good? Happy?” Dave asks.

“I feel great or I did until you started bitching.” you snap.

“Sorry. Uh, do you… feel like you understand your project better than anyone else could?” Dave asks, glancing back at his phone.

Familiarity tingles in the back of your head. You know these questions. You wrap your mind around his phone and yank it over to you, right out of his hand! It hovers before your face, a list of symptoms of hypomania and mania. He’s quizzing you, he thinks you’re sick, he’s going to tell on you to your parents like a fucking schoolkid. What does he know about any of this shit?! He’s never seen you like that, how fucking presumptive can he be?!

“I’m not sick!” you shout at him and his phone explodes. Dave flinches and steps back.

The rage drains out of you like water through tissue paper, leaving you broken and ruined afterwards. You just scared him. You could kill him if you wanted to and he’s never ever been scared of you but you just scared him. Your moirail who you pity so hard it hurts you.

You’re not sleeping. You’ve barely eaten. You don’t hate yourself for once or you didn’t until a second ago. You’re going so fast you can scarcely code fast enough, you’ve been lying to people, drinking far too many energy drinks and riding on a caffeine high. Everything tastes better, feels better. You’re sure that this project will save everything, that only you can do it.

You’ve just ticked off almost everything on the checklist for hypomania and you’re verging into ones on full blown mania.

“Oh shit, Dave no… I’m so sorry.” you whisper, rushing to him. Blessedly he doesn’t jump when you touch him, instead he just holds you tighter.

“You’re right, I think you’re right. I’m having an episode.” you whisper into his shirt. Inside you’re desperate to deny it, you want to keep doing what you’re doing, you don’t want them to know. But you need to ignore that impulse, you have to do what you don’t want to do.

“It’s ok man, it’s going to be fine. You helped me when I was sick, I’m gonna help you. I’ll message Psii on my shades, get him here.” Dave assures you.

You pull back from him and stare at the scattered remains of his phone on the floor in horror. Look at what you did. Regret is seeping out of every pore of your skin and- hey, there’s your old friend self loathing. It was so nice to not deal with that for a few days but it’s back. It reminds you that Dave has never seen you like this before, distantly post Aradia but you stayed away from everyone so he didn’t deal with it at all. But now… oh boy he’s got front row seats to your garbage brain and maybe he could handle depressed you because he’s been there too but you like this? No way, he’s gonna run a mile. He should.

“You’re phone- I’m so sorry.” you apologise even though you don’t deserve any forgiveness.

“Psii’s coming and it’s fine man, don’t worry. Hal got me used to backing my shit up regularly at most I think I lost one photo of Karkat suspiciously drinking apple juice next to John. I can alchemise a new one.” he tells you.

You want to ask him what he told Psii but before you can work up the guts the man bursts into your room anyway, he looks at Dave who is startled, the mess of his exploded phone, at you and the many many cans of energy drink around the place.

“Shit. Shit. Sit down.” he tells you and you do, perched on the edge of your bed.

Dave goes with you and familiarity starts back up. Psii runs you through a full psych checklist for mania and hypomania symptoms. You’re bad but you’re aware enough to accept that you’re doing badly which does not always happen, so that’s a point in your favour at least. You’ve had enough of these episodes to know the drill and you’ve had enough treatment from actual medical professionals to be okay with not seeing a doctor, though you imagine you’ll be seeing Hal before too long.

The problem with hypomania and mania is that you’re just- you’re going too fast is the problem. Even now looking at your work you’re itching to get back to it, multiple parts of it just screaming at you to do more and even those new ideas are popping up faster than you can ever deal with them. You need to be slowed down. Which… sucks. So there’s special medication for that, you can never spell the name of them but they’re uncomfortably large to swallow and taste really bad. You down the one that Psii drops into your hand and let him check to make sure you’ve not just hidden it in your mouth somewhere, you’d be offended at his lack of trust in you if it wasn’t for the fact that you’ve absolutely done that before.

Psii explains to Dave that you’ll probably be irritable as fuck now that you’re under treatment again, especially as you’re deprived of anything that might get you more excited. No more work, no more video games, no more caffeine, no SBURB related tasks, no working out, strict sleep schedule and all that boring shit.

“That seems like a lot of things he can’t do.” Dave protests on your behalf.

“It’s for his own good, we all have the same restrictions when we’re like this. Listen...” Psii hesitates, looking between you and Dave.

“Can I talk to you outside?” Psii asks him. Dave glances at you but nods and follows him out.

You know what this is going to be. He’s going to tell Dave how shitty to be around you’re gonna be, about how not being able to do what you want to do is going to make you hell, how Dave isn’t qualified for this and you’re not his responsibility. You flop down on your bed and shove your face into the pillow. You don’t blame him and it was nice while this thing between you lasted but you’re still probably going to pity him forever. Anger roils inside you, not at him for no doubt leaving like any sane person should but at yourself for being so fundamentally broken. You don’t deserve to be-

“Jesus.” Dave sighs as he walks back into your room. You push yourself up and look at him.

“Oh, your dad’s just gone to tell your parents about what’s going on. Probably Karkat too since he’s mr. schedule. Move your giant legs.” Dave says and smacks you in the shins until you pull back, leaving him space to drop down onto the bed with a sigh.

“I’m pretty sure every name of everything you have to take just went in one ear and out the other, who names this shit anyway?” Dave groans, tipping his head back and exposing the vulnerable line of his throat as he sprawls back over your legs. Because he trusts you. But- why is he still here.

“I don’t get it.” you say quietly.

“Yeah me neither, like is there some naming system that I’m not getting or do they just pull that out of their ass?” Dave rambles on, not realising that you mean you don’t get why he’s here still.

“Hey, I had a thought.” Dave says, looking over at you.

“Uh.” you say.

“Psii said that the code you were writing might well not be anything depending on how bad you were and I know you’re not allowed to work on it now but what if we gave it to Mituna? He understands code too, right? I mean, if what you were making was as great as you said it was then you’re right we shouldn’t just toss it out. If he works on it when you get better it’ll be great. Besides if anyone can understand the way you write that shit it’ll be him, right? I mean I’ve sent sleep drunk messages to John before and he’s had no idea what I’m saying but Rose can read it fine. He’s your brother so, you know.” Dave suggests.

The territorial part of you hisses at the thought of anyone getting in your code but at least if SOMEONE is doing something with it then your manic energy wasn’t for nothing.

“I hate that idea, let’s do it. Are you staying?” you ask, flopping back on the pillow again.

“Yeah. Well, I’m gonna have to pull off some crazy loops to be in two places at once but honestly my time powers need training so maybe that’s good for me. Hey, we could do something chill like go through Karkat’s collection of nostalgic weird kids movies that I never saw.” he offers.

He’s not going to leave you, apparently he never even thought of it. Plus he’s going out of his way to pull double length time shifts just to be around you.

“Ok.” you say hoarsely.

An hour later you’re in Dave’s room with a bunch of movie discs scattered on the floor from Karkat’s, Dirk’s and Jake’s collections. On the screen Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure plays as Dave’s shoulders shake with silent laughter at the time travel. You rest your head on his shoulder and feel his silent amusement ripple through you.

“You can’t love me better.” you say, your words slow and thick. Hey apparently your medication has started kicking it.

“No shit. But if you’ve been able to do that to me and haven’t been we’re having words, man.” Dave drawls. He pushes at you until your head is resting on his lap and your laying down but curled up with him. When you fall asleep it’s to Dave theorising that Keanu Reeves is immortal and probably still wandering Earth in an unlikely band with Obama who apparently also can’t die and Santa. You don’t think you hallucinated that. With Dave it’s hard to tell.

You wake up in the middle of the night because you really need to pee. You’re cuddled up to Dave under the covers who is breathing slow and easy. You’re still woozy so you’re not you’re best coordinated when you climb over him and step down. Especially not when you step on a person and not the floor.

“MOTHER FUCKER!” Karkat yells out. Dave doesn’t stir, he sleeps through loud noises.

You’re on the floor and also your shoulder now hurts from landing on it. Squinting behind you there’s the obvious shape of a mattress and your brother sitting up cursing as quietly as he can but that’s not that quiet.

“Karkat?” you ask.

“No shit, Sherlock. Augh you stomped on my leg and made it go dead you bag of rotting dicks!” he hisses.

“Why are you here?” you say as you sit up properly.

“Dave needed company while you drooled on him like a drugged up blind idiot who steps on innocent bystanders, WHICH IS WHAT YOU ARE.” Karkat snaps.

“Oh.” you nod. You shove yourself back up to standing and stumble off to go pee. By the time you come back Karkat has swung around to remorse and is waiting at the door, he shoves you back into the bathroom when you try to leave.

“How’re you doing?” Karkat asks. You shrug, you’ve no idea really.

“I didn’t expect Dave to stay when he saw me like this.” you admit. Underneath the chemical dampening you can feel yourself violently vibrating inside, too much energy with no way out.

“Give my soulmate a little more credit, dumbass.” Karkat snorts.

“Look,” Karkat says a little more gently, “I’m not going to just abandon you, no one in our family is. We never do. And Dave might have no idea what he’s doing but he’s going to not know what he’s doing with a lot of dedication, same as he does everything he cares about really. Besides, your friends are here too.”

You’re too full. Of ideas, of energy, of stress, fear, panic, and everything else. You know that Dave probably helped you catch this soon enough, it was only a few days. The thing is you know how this goes, what goes up must come down and you have never once gone high and landed back in stable, you’ve always just crashed right down into terrible black depression.

“What use am I gonna be to anyone?” you whine. You went through all of this surgery to help and now you’ll be lucky if your parents ever let you helm at all, let alone allow Mituna to do it. You’ve made things objectively worse.

“You’re not a tool. Well you are, you act like one at least. But I mean you’re not FOR anyone, you don’t have a use, man. You’re dealing with shit most other people don’t have to, you’ll get better you always do. And hey, worrying about not being good enough for people is my brand, dumbass. Don’t encroach on my territory.” Karkat grins at you and punches you in the shoulder.

“Come on, let’s go back to bed.” he tells you.

It takes a week for your numbed hypomania to wear off. During that time Dave is with you almost all of the time. Not always paying attention to you or smothering you, sometimes you’re watching some dumb movie and he’s drawing or listening to music. Your siblings and friends spend time with you, even when you’re a moody asshole who snaps at them.

Rose brings an assortment of nail polishes both old and newly alchemised and she and Dave talk as he paints one of your hands blue and glittery and the other red and glittery. Mituna updates you on your apparently not useless coding work, he and Psii have been working on it and already lots of the players are getting awesome upgrades from cheating the system. Your siblings hang out with you, even Aradia which is pretty awkward with Dave around as she used to be your main support when you were like this in the past but it all passes smoothly in the end.

Dave is running himself ragged by looping and essentially adding at least an extra eight hours to his days and occasionally you just don’t see him for a day so that he can reset his schedule and sleep a lot.

All the same a week later he’s sleeping next to you when you open your eyes and look at your ceiling and find yourself mildly disappointed to still exist.

Your eyes widen and you run your mind over a mental checklist.

Do you want to work on your project? No, not really it’s already being done and it’s effort. Do you feel restless and awake? No, you’re more tired than anything. What about thinking you’re great or just plain thinking too fast? None of that either.

No more hypomania then.

You blink lazily at the ceiling. You’re exhausted, you’ve been asleep for eight hours and you’re still tired. Which is fucking on par for your trash fire of a life. Ugh, you’re out the _other_ side, aren’t you?

You flick over diagnostic checklists in your mind. Low energy, bad mood, sleeping too much, lack of enthusiasm for life, check. But you don’t overly hate every part of your being and you’re more disappointed that life is happening rather than actively wishing it wasn’t. You don’t feel bitter and angry at other people for being happy or like torching your relationships just to make sure no one is ever forced to care about you.

This feels mild by your standards. Huh.

You shift a little closer to Dave and decide that you’re absolutely staying here until he wakes up, then you’ll have to see your dad and Hal and… ugh. But depression at least you’re used to. You can function like this. Hey, maybe you can even claw out of it and into the mythical and rarely seen land of emotional stability.

That almost feels like hope.


End file.
